Making Helpfulness Fun
some tips for giving your kids a little push in the intrinsically-motivated direction 😉
Yesterday we shared some key insights from the first several chapters of Hunt, Gather, Parent and I confessed to a huge gap in my parenting: intrinsic motivation to help. I want my kids to pay attention to what needs to be done and do it happily; not for the sake of a gold sticker but because they find purpose in being part of the team1. But just because we’re trying to get the kids to pay attention to what needs to be done doesn’t mean that they can’t enjoy it.
Ideas to Make Cleaning More Fun
Dress Up/Clean As Characters
When you can tell the kids really need a morale boost, pretend that you’re a third party coming to clean the house, but come in character. Have fun with this!
Dress in Victorian butler costumes and say things in a fancy voice like, “Good heavens, can you believe these children left the crayons out?” or “Tut-tut! Someone certainly had fun in the mud today.”
Pretend to be groups of treasured characters such as the Super Mario gang, the Avengers, Winnie the Pooh, etc. Let each person choose their character and use their powers to clean.
Dress in rags and dramatically pity yourselves like Cinderella while scrubbing the floor 😉 If someone is telling you to make the saddest face possible, you probably won’t stay sad for long.
Have A Professional Interview
Announce to the children that you will be interviewing them to see how they can best contribute to the family. Wear nice clothes and invite them to do the same (and even bring a briefcase if they would like.)
Once the child enters your “office” (even if it’s the kitchen table), stand, shake their hand, and ask them questions such as, “What’s your name? How old are you? How long have you been living in the area?” etc. Scribble some notes while nodding very seriously 😛 Then ask them questions that might add real value, such as:
What are some things you really enjoy doing?
What do you feel like you’re really good at?
What are some ways your unique interests and gifts could help the family?
Are there any tasks that are very frustrating to you?
What are some of your dreams for our home?
At the end, say something like, “Congratulations, you’re part of the family! We’ll be in touch about ways that we can use your skills.”
Give Funny Names to the Various Jobs
We made this silly chart for you to inspire some ways that your kids can know what they’re expected to do when you’re working on a job. For example, if you want to make dish-washing a little more fun, you can say, “Jodi, you’re Poseidon today!” or “Brett, you’re so good at putting things back where they belong. As the realtor, please show these dishes to their homes!”
We add silly little twists, like that the Gopher has to show her teeth when she accepts a new errand (something to go-fer), or that Santa Claus has to make a jolly laugh when he finds a new item. The Overseer must exert much effort not to come across as bossy. It’s all a lot of fun chaos.
If you have an only child, you can still rotate between the jobs (and take on roles yourself.) This would likely get wearisome to do every day, but maybe it can give you a boost and help you see some new strengths in your kids!
Race Against the Clock
The Timer and Stopwatch function on phones is magical. Tell your kids, “I’ll bet that if we really focus and work as a team, we can reset this room in fifteen minutes and spend the rest of the hour playing.” Play fast music and blast through it.
Another thing you can do is keep a list of how long it takes you to reset a room, and see if you can keep beating your time.
Wait Boxes and Purge-atory
If you need to do an instantaneous, dramatic declutter, take one room at a time and ask the kids to imagine what they want that space to look and feel like without buying anything new or making any big changes. They want to feel peaceful and free, right? But the thought of decluttering can be so big that sometimes you need to take a dreaded ADHD tendency but be proactive with it: make Doom Boxes (or “Wait Boxes.”) Or, as I like to call it, “Purge-atory.” 😅
Set out an open trash can, a dirty laundry basket, a Donate bag, and a large “Wait Box” or basket. Invite the kids to put almost everything that doesn’t bring them a ton of joy into one of those categories just so they can see what the room is like without clutter.
Make it clear that the items in the “Wait Box” are not being donated or thrown away; you’re just going to move those items to the garage or somewhere out-of-sight—maybe even the shower, if you’re limited in space. They can liberally put things in it without any real consequences so they can wait while we see if we miss them. Usually they’ll hardly miss anything and you can donate/ditch most of what’s inside.
Clutter piles up very quickly in our home, so my kids have fun saying, “Oh, we’re making a Doom Box?” because they know that we’re going to totally transform a room quickly.
Give the kids actual cleaning equipment.
You can use a kid-safe cleaner like vinegar or a concentrate you feel good about (see below.) Even just water + a good rag2 is very helpful for dusting or cleaning windows.
Oftentimes you can adjust a mop or broom so it can fit your child better. Forget a pricey vacuum toy; small vacuums/dust busters are great for supervised toddlers!
As shared before, you can mix up a bottle of some kid-safe cleaner (we use a Thieves cleaner knockoff from Amazon) and label it as “Soot Sprite Spray,” referencing mythical creatures that are mentioned in Studio Ghibli movies. When it’s time to dust, you can say “Let’s get those soot sprites!” and your kids might find a new skip in their step.
BINGO
Save this list or make your own and work together to try to make BINGO in a new direction each week. It gets easier and quicker as more spaces are filled. You could also offer ice cream every time you get a BINGO. Not quite intrinsic motivation, but it does encourage teamwork (and your house gets clean.)
Hopefully these ideas gave you some ideas to help your family have a little bit more fun and lightheartedness while doing good work! (Our family needs all the inspiration we can get; cleaning is not our strength!)
Let the Kids Take the Lead
If you’re having a physically draining day, you can be honest and say, “I don’t feel well and I need to lay down…but there are still things that need to be done. You may rest while I rest, but it sure would be nice if some elves/faeries did some tasks so our house can be all fresh and clean when I get up...” (This is inspired by the Brothers Grimm story that we love to read at Christmastime.)
Recently I needed to rest so I told the kids I was going to take a 25-minute nap, but that I hoped the living room would be reset when I woke up. I told my 8-year-old she was in charge. True story: My alarm went off and I stepped into beautifully clean living spaces. The 8-year-old had come up with her own system and assigned jobs. The youngest was snacking on apples. She told her siblings that if they earned 10 stars, she would give them a prize. She recorded their progress and even their potty breaks 😅, and three of them qualified for the prize. She handed each of them a gift bag with items from her room and a personalized handwritten note!
Though it was rewards-based, her system was wonderful, and the kids worked as a team. As a family, we were free to enjoy the rest of our evening in a peaceful space. You never know how much your kids can show their strengths when they’re just given a chance…bonus when that “chance” means you get to take a nap 😉
I’d love to hear your ideas!
Stay tuned tomorrow for letting your kids help you with homemade pasta!
Warmly,
Hope from Family Scripts
P.S. Feel free to share this with a friend who could use some encouragement to make tasks more fun!
Purpose goes back to what we learned in Man’s Search for Meaning!
This post was refreshing to read and loaded with great ideas. We've incorporated fun things for clean up times in the past, such as wearing skates around the house to put stuff away and listening to fun music, but we've currently been in a long stretch of too much focus and not enough fun. I have also noticed that as my kids get older sometimes just doing things together makes things fun and enjoyable. When the littles are in bed, my older kids love being able to talk my ear off as they do dishes. If it's a really big mess I'll read to them while they clean to take away the overwhelming factor...just means I read longer! Or if there's not much to clean they hurry up so we can cozy up on the couch to read instead. My littles also appreciate time spent doing chores with me, although not every time or when I might like. Littles are often eager to help, and while the job may take longer and not turn out perfectly, it affords the opportunity to teach them the skills, talk with them, and keep your eye on them if they are in a troublemaking stage. My 2.5 yr old loves standing on a stool by the sink and rinsing the bubbles off of the dishes that I get all soapy.
I often suggest to my kids that they pretend to be Snow White (and turn on "Whistle While Your Work" to make it even more cheerful). Pretend play is powerful, which you've outlined so clearly here -- these are great ideas!